beluga

Friday, April 24, 2015

Friday in Vernon

It rained all night last night. It rained hard. When we pulled into our spot in tiny Alvord, Tx. the ground was already saturated, so the overnight downpour put Beluga smack in the middle of a red mud lake. Sigh.

This morning, in the rain, Dave walked the campground roads to be sure our exit wouldn't sink us in the mud. He found a path he felt we could manage and we were off in Amarillo's direction. The radar showed some hefty storms that were going to cross our paths, somewhere. We decided to gamble rather than stay in Alvord and drown.

We drove in and out of downpours for a few hours, then the wind picked up. We don't have an anemometer on board but Dave estimated the speed to be about 30 mph steady with gusts of at least 50 mph on Beluga's left rear corner. The drive was a real battle. Amarillo was a long way off. We passed by a decent looking campground in Vernon so we made the first available U-turn and parked ourselves for the night. Watching the radar, we saw storms raging all around us, but not one drop landed here at the Rocking A Campground. We made a good choice.

Our site is on the end of a fairly empty row, our only neighbor is a beautiful wheat field, rippling in the wind. As the day wore on the sky over us cleared, the wind calmed and we were treated to some bright, warm sunshine for a change.

The wheat is edged by a narrow row of bright blue bachelor buttons. Oh Dave...

Vernon seems to be a nice little town in what feels like an endless no where. We did a few errands, got the jeep washed and had a pleasant relaxed dinner. On our way back into the campground we saw this fantastic scissor tailed flycatcher plying his trade next to the roadway. What a beauty he was!

Tomorrow is another day. The forecast is for sun and relatively calm winds so we're excited (excited, happy not excited, trepidatious) to continue our trek west.

Glad you didn't drowned in the park "lake." We saw you might hit some rain. Glad you were able to find some place nice to wait out the potential storms and get out of the wind. Thanks goodness they didn't develop.